Birthday Bash

Birthday Bash?
Every ‘Aani maasa Aaslesha’ is a special day for us; my wife’s Nakshatra birthday falls on that day; a day to celebrate. But ever since my father’s demise, celebrations of all kinds have become far and few. Our children remember the English dates of birth and our non Hindu neighbours keep wondering how our birthdays fall on different dates each calendar year. It is only the two of us these days, my wife and I who keep referring to Panchaangam and wish each other and our children the traditional ‘Happy birthdays’.
We are happily married for the past 36 years. Call it our traditional upbringing if you like, ours was an arranged marriage. No courtship, no flowers or chocolates, no moonlight walks, no lingering good-byes on the front porch. We didn’t set out to defy romantic customs; it just turned out that way. And stayed that way. We were so busy bringing up kids thereafter; we had been married seven years before we remembered our wedding anniversary. It took us another ten years for us to notice each other’s Nakshatra birthdays.
But this year (29th Jun), I decided to throw traditions to the winds. Soldiering some times makes you do weird things and I am no different with my ‘brains in my boots’ so to say. Much against the sane advice of my beloved wife, and to celebrate my newness of ideas this year, I decided to have a so called ‘conventionally’ romantic evening: a quiet, just-the-two-of-us dinner at a nice restaurant. But the trouble started even before the word ‘go’. Being a ‘Meena Raasau Jaatah’, and true to the zodiac sign, I am labeled as inconstant, changeable, fickle minded like the fish . ‘Chanchalam hi manah Krishna’ is truly applicable to me. So after a number of ‘yes-no, yes-no’ finally I did decide to catch the bull by its horns and take my wife out for a dinner though it was pretty late in the night. It is not zimbly that I used to be addressed as ‘late Latif’ by my close friends in forces.
When we arrived at the restaurant, we were told there would be a 40-minute wait, and so we headed for another nice, but not so romantic, place. About halfway to our second choice I realized that the restaurant would not honour my credit card and I was low on cash. I sighed and said to my wife, “I do have enough dough for a place I know! That is Lakshmi Vilas Kaappi Hotel, where the proprietor G I (Ganesh Iyer) is sure to provide us a sumptuous dinner with a free ‘sweet paan’ to follow.”
“Umm…. Clearly, aren’t we veering off the conventional course a bit?” queried my wife. For many of her queries I never have an answer. So I maintained a stoic silence. We were soon on the door steps of Lakshmi Vilas.
“O hello sir, Vaango vaango. How come you are taking a walk so late in the night?” asked Ganesh Iyer. “Atthaazham kazhinjirikkum illeya?” I could sense that GI was not quite ready to receive any more customers that night. But I took the initiative to place the order as my wife went into select a ‘romantic’ spot. GI listened to my orders patiently and after what appeared to be a long pause, he said, “But pardon me sir, the day’s business is over”
“Today GI, I will have none of these ‘Nos’ from you. You got to produce something even it is out of your way”, I pleaded explaining the importance of the day (rather the night) and my determination to break new non-traditional paths.
“V V R, sir. Thair saadam and Uppilittathe is all I can offer. Nothing else. It is 11 PM, sir. Please do understand”, GI responded with some firmness.
The deal having been struck, I joined my wife inside the hall. There I found two servers methodically turning the molded plastic chairs up onto the Kadappa black stone topped tables.
“This section is closed”, one waiter said.
I started to protest but stopped to choke back a laugh. May be because the worker thought I was going to cry, he removed and re-laid the upended two chairs from a table and said, “This okay?”
I thanked him and after he had gone sat giggling leaving my wife a little confused. Surrounded by a forest of upside-down chair legs, we had our birthday dinner. It wasn’t exactly quiet, what with grill workers yelling at each other in the kitchen past the swinging door near our table strategically placed close to a wash basin. But it was just the two of us, if you didn’t count the maid servant with the mop that kept bumping our chairs.
At least it was an evening out. And we did have fun. In fact, by the time we had finished the last morsel of ‘finger lickin’ Thair saadam we were down right silly. The comic elements of the evening had not escaped us, and our attempts to muffle our laughter made everything seem funnier. Just as our romantic dinner was coming to an end, that swinging door to the kitchen flew open. We turned to see a kitchen worker toss a large trash bag through the doorway without even glancing in our direction. Thanks to my still intact reflexes (playing 7 tiles during my childhood days perhaps), I ducked and the bag came to rest close to our feet. This final touch proved too much for us and we burst into unbridled laughter.
When we were back home my wife said, “one of the main qualities women look for in men is a sense of humour. By such a measure our dinner was a roaring success and you have come out with flying colours as the true nut that I know of for ever so many years now”, said my wife.
“What to do? Manasaa chinthitham ekam daivam anyathra chintayeth. Man proposes God disposes.” I said philosophically.
“Never mind”, consoled my wife as she opened the fridge and surprised me by bringing on the dining table, a bowl of delicious home made gulaab Jaamoons. I took one piece and extended my hand surreptitiously for one more as she pushed the bowl gently out of my reach.
“How true the saying is”, she said
‘Aasai erukkudu Taahsildar aaka
Adhrishtam erukkudhu kazhudhai meakka”.
We laughed as our grandfather clock chimed twelve heralding the commencement of the first day of my wife’s ……..th year.

Warm rgds
V V R
3rd July 06.